“It’s not fair that I had to attempt suicide to be heard, but I don’t want you to ever think that it was your fault.”
In South Carolina, Upstate Evaluation Center saw the most severe cry for help we can see coming from our children: an unnamed 16-year-old attempted to take her own life in order to get the help she needed from the detention center staff. The teenager’s attempt to take her own life is only the latest in a years-long rise in serious issues within the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. Faced with issues of detention centers being understaffed and staff overworked—frequently working 24-36 hour shifts with no breaks—children incarcerated in South Carolina are not able to get any of the rehabilitative help that they need.
Senator Katrina Shealy—a South Carolina state senator for the past 10 years—has come out in support of the staff’s newly sparked protests over the poor pay, long hours, and lack of benefits. Shealy says that the DJJ staff used to know every child’s name and that they would walk out “with a trade,” but now youth only leave with an understanding of “how to become a better criminal.” Not only are South Carolina detention centers faced with the problems of staff being overworked, but the director of the department, Freddie Pough, has also failed to report and follow-through on issues of neglect and abuse to welfare and law enforcement agencies, as the law cites.
Simply increasing the budgets of South Carolina’s juvenile detention centers is not enough to see a tangible change that will prevent other children from attempting to take their own life like the 16-year-old in the Upstate Evaluation Center. Children must be released from detention centers and given supportive programming in order to literally save lives. Attempts by children to take their lives results in an unfathomable ripple effect—not only will they have to continue to live with the trauma that led to their attempt, but they, their friends, their family, and the staff and other youth at the center they are incarcerated at will have to heal from the attempt itself. Our children and teenagers need to be given the best shot they can have at the life that they have ahead of them, and incarcerating them and exposing them to severe challenges with little to no support is not the answer.
In Charleston, South Carolina, the DJJ is working with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to provide alternatives to detention for their local youth. Reducing the population of incarcerated children and teenagers by funding data-backed alternative programs will make local communities in South Carolina safer for youth, their communities, and anyone currently incarcerated or working in a juvenile detention center. While this program is promising for the state, many advocates admit that there must be legislative changes for low-level and nonviolent offending youth in order to see true progress.